Synopsis:

Ethan Sisser, a young man with terminal brain cancer, sits alone in his hospital room. When he starts livestreaming his death journey on social media, thousands of people around the world join to celebrate his courage. Still, Ethan envisions more – to teach the world how to die without fear. To do that, he needs to film his death.

Honoring Ethan's wish, his doctor Aditi Sethi transports him to an idyllic house in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Asheville, North Carolina. What unfolds next is a story rarely glimpsed: how a community of strangers helps a young man die with grace.

A sensory immersion into leaving the body, “The Last Ecstatic Days”reveals a man who will not let us forget him – even after he’s taken his final breath.

Post-Screening Discussion:

Dr. Aditi Sethi, founder of The Center for Conscious Living and Dying

Dr. Aditi Sethi is the founder and Executive Director of the Center for Conscious Living & Dying. She is a hospice and palliative care physician, end-of-life doula, and musician. Featured in the documentary “The Last Ecstatic Days,” Aditi is an emerging and important voice for shifting our culture’s understanding and approach to dying, death, and bereavement care.

Scott Kirschenbaum, director of The Last Ecstatic Days

Scott L. Kirschenbaum’s films include the Alzheimer’s documentary “YOU’RE LOOKING AT ME LIKE I LIVE HERE, AND I DON’T,” which aired on PBS’ Emmy award-winning program Independent Lens, and serves as a teaching tool for nonprofits, universities, public libraries and conferences; the speaker series “A SOAPBOX IN HAITI” which was featured on ABC World News, premiered on Haitian television stations on the one-year anniversary of the earthquake and is taught in Haitian studies programs; the birth documentary “These Are My Hours,” which was called “the most cinematic birth documentary ever” by No Film School and has been distributed and taught in birth courses worldwide; “ELEMENTARY COOL,” about a young Sudanese refugee girl’s first day at an American elementary school, which premiered nationally at Playworks’ PlayOn Conference; and “JUMOR: A JOURNEY THROUGH JEWISH HUMOR,” a documentary about lovely (and curmudgeonly) old Jews.

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"The Last Ecstatic Days": A Screening + Discussion with Dr. Aditi Sethi & Director Scott Kirschenbaum

Join us for the first-ever Philadelphia screening of "The Last Ecstatic Days" documentary